San Joaquin County
Biographies
WILLIAM M. GIBSON
WILLIAM M. GIBSON, Assistant
District Attorney and Court Commissioner of San Joaquin County, residing in Stockton, was born in
Covington, Kentucky, July 29, 1851, a son of W. T. A. and Catherine
(Joyner) Gibson. The father, born in that State, became a druggist, following
that business some years before leaving for California in 1852. He arrived with his wife and son in San Francisco, January 1, 1853, and went to mining for two years in
Amador County. In 1855 he settled in this city, and resumed the
previous occupation of druggist for a few years. Being a graduate of a southern
educational institution, he was appointed the first superintendent of the
public schools of this city, holding the position for some years. He was county
tax-collector in 1872 and 1873, and died here in March, 1889, aged sixty-eight.
The mother died in San
Francisco in
1887 at the age of sixty. Grandfather George Gibson, of Scotch descent, became
an extensive tobacco-planter, in his native State, Kentucky, and died at the age of seventy-nine. Grandparents
Joyner, natives of North
Carolina, also
lived to an advanced age.
The subject of this sketch was educated in
the public and private schools of this city to the age of twelve, when he was placed in a collegiate school at Oakland
until the opening of the University of California in 1868, then in the University Mound College in San
Francisco until 1870, when he
entered the University of California. In 1872 he went to New
York and entered the law
department of the Union University, at which he was graduated in May, 1873, and on
examination admitted to the bar of that State. He was married in Albany,
New York, in 1873, to Miss Jera Wing, born in that city about
1854, a daughter of D. L. and Rachel (Wing) Wing. The father was proprietor of
the Julien Flour Mills of that city. The paternal grandparents of Mrs. Gibson
lived to celebrate their golden wedding and were over eighty at their death. On
the return of Mr. Gibson to Stockton with his wife in 1874, he was admitted to the bar of
the Supreme Court, and has practiced his profession here since that time. He
has been, successively, assistant district attorney to W. L. Hopkins, J. C.
Campbell, S. A. Booker, and the present incumbent A. C. White. He is also one
of the local attorneys for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He has been a member
of the staff of the Third Brigade, National Guard of California, fourteen
years, and is its Adjutant, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, since 1889.
Mr. and Mrs. Gibson have two children:
William M., Jr., born February 6, 1875, and Fred Raymond, born September 3,
1877.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Page 345. Lewis Pub. Co.
Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Golden Nugget Library's San Joaquin County
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